As a full-time freelance photographer, we often ask ourselves why we should work for free, especially at the start of our careers. Are we being taken for a ride, or is it worth investing in our client for possible future returns?
One thing I’m sure all band photographers, like myself, question all the time, is the necessity for the Three Song Rule limit at live concerts. Is it still as necessary as promoters and agents make it out to be, or is just because it’s become the norm over years?
What if you woke up one morning and found yourself unable to come up with any good ideas on what to shoot next? You spend the entire day scouring the web, reading books, or talking to people and yet you still can’t come up with anything good? You’re so desperate, in the end, you just grab the camera and start shooting, but nothing good comes from it. Everything you shoot feels like it's only halfway there and doesn’t quite meet the standards of your photography or that of your peers. This happens to all of us, and before you think this is just another guide to getting you out of this rut — it isn’t.
I absolutely love post production as a photographer. For me, a job is 50% photography and 50% retouching. One compliments the other. I get just as excited photographing my images as I get to retouch them. And when I captured a lightning storm in Cape Town a few weeks back, it was no different.
I love visiting the countryside. It's a great way to unwind, relax, and forget about the daily office hustle, the traffic, and whatever else is synonymous with a suburban lifestyle. As a photographer, the first thing I pack is my camera bag in the hopes that I'll get a chance to capture some landscape shots. What I did not expect is to get more than I bargained for. Especially this last weekend.
Digital photography, especially concerning smartphones, is taking the world by storm these days. It's become the norm to see people whip out their phones when something dreadful happens in public, or when they want to photograph that special moment with their friends while cruising down the freeway at some awful speed. When that wasn't extreme enough, there's the very recent case of the model hanging off the edge of Dubai's 307-meter Cayan Tower.
Imagine living in the 1900s as a professional photographer. People were overdressed, kids were running around the streets, not with knives or guns, but with sticks, chasing something crudely resembling a wheel. Yet, photographers everywhere were getting upset. Not only because of some "weekend warrior" undercutting them, but due to the fact that Kodak unveiled something that would forever shift the photographic market for decades to come...
